“[The Surface plus Transit option], which could potentially open up the waterfront while providing an affordable, environmentally friendly means of moving traffic through the city, has not yet been studied. The surface option that WSDOT briefly examined contained no transit element and bears little resemblance to what surface-transit advocates are proposing.

“If we are going to position Seattle as a vibrant world-class 21st century metropolis, we need to proceed with boldness and vision. We need to think beyond present-day categories, with an eye to the long-term. How we decide on the Viaduct today is a profound test of our commitment to a better, more enlightened future. The right sort of transit-friendly surface proposal could meet that test.”

This Tuesday, tell Olympia that you want better options.

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I agree with Sims that we need to think long-term. That’s why I favor the Floating Bridge Option. It wouldn’t float right away, of course, but if you build the roadway on top of concrete pontoons — you’re ready for global warming and sea level rise! Plus you’ll have a pedestrian/vehicle underpass between every pontoon.

Speaking of global warming, Redneck can mock it all he wants — but global warming is already shaping major business deals.

When the New York leveraged buyout firm of Kohlberg Kravis teamed up with Texas Pacific to buy TXU, Texas’ biggest electric utility, they first cut a deal with environmental groups. The result: 8 of the 11 new coal-fired power plants that TXU wants will not be built.

Not only that, the Kohlberg-Kravis/Texas Pacific group is calling for a mandatory nationwide CO2 emissions limit.

Kravis, Wall Street’s LBO king and a multi-billionaire, isn’t turning “green” out of sentimentality for the planet. Kravis, whom no one can accuse of being soft-headed when it comes to business and self-interest, understands that a power company can’t prosper if it has no customers because the whole fucking human species is extinct. Also, it’s kind of hard for a rich guy to enjoy his money if he’s extinct, too.

If we are going to position Seattle as a vibrant world-class 21st century metropolis

Why the @#$% do we need to be a world-class city? What good does it do us? Who are we trying to impress? Who decides we’re a world-class city? Is there some committee somewhere that decides these things, or is it just a bunch of drunks in some bar, or what?

And why do we need to impress them, whoever “they” happen to be? Why should we care about their opinion? What makes their opinion so vitally important to our day-to-day lives?

I already know Seattle is a great place to live, despite the efforts to destroy it. I don’t need someone in New York or Paris or Barcelona or Iceland or the Philippines or Hastings to validate my opinion. I’m just going to shrug and think “Your loss, not mine.” Don’t like Seattle? Great. I’ll be happy to give you a ride to Sea-Tac.

We need to quit worrying about useless trendoids in SoHo and start worrying about people in this city.

Now, vibrancy is another matter, but I’d trust the women at Babeland with that before I’d trust Ron Sims. Seriously, given that both the Empty Space Theater and the Tacoma Arts Guild just went belly-up in the past six months, I’d have to say that the more the city strives for “world-class” status, the further it backslides.

“DENVER (March 9) – Stung by Gov. Bill Ritter’s veto of a bill that would make it easier for unions to organize, the AFL-CIO threatened to recommend the Democratic Party move its 2008 convention from Denver.

“In an unsigned letter first reported in The Denver Post …, the AFL-CIO’s executive council said it planned to seek reintroduction of a bill that would make it easier to set up all-union workplaces and seek a commitment from Ritter that he would sign it. … Keith Maddox, a national AFL-CIO official, said a high-level delegation … will be sent to speak with Ritter. …

“Observers said … the threat is ‘very potent.’ … Denver’s bid for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, nearly collapsed because the leader of the stagehands union balked at … the convention [being] held at the nonunion Pepsi Center. A compromise was negotiated to staff the Pepsi Center entirely with union labor for the duration of the convention.”

Newsweek Magazine reports new evidence might solve California’s “Zodiac” serial killer case. For years, letters written by “Zodiac” have lain dormant in the San Francisco P.D., whose case is inactive. When they came to the attention of Vallejo, CA, detectives working the case, the stamps on these letters were sent to the state crime lab for DNA analysis using state-of-art methods. According to Newsweek, the results should be available “in a few weeks.”

The 9/11 Report said Wilson lied – From the Washington Post: “The report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame “offered up” Wilson’s name for the Niger trip, then on Feb. 12, 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations saying her husband “has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.” The next day, the operations official cabled an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson, the report said.”

The Senate Report said Wilson lied on pages 39-47

BTW if you two took a few minutes on Google you could determine which African countries support the claim Iraq was looking for yellow cake.

And Headlice you love to write how Bush let Bin Laden go. Well Richard Clarke admitted he gave the order unilaterally after lying to the 9/11 Commission before. I suggest a visit to the Bellevue Cheesecake Factory. Your sugar level is low!

Don’t let the facts get in the way of the libtard mantra. Keep saying it until you live it.

Sorry Will, but this ballot will “tell” Olympia nothing. It may well provide them with additional political cover and allow further obfuscation, but a real vote has real consequences and these 341,000 pieces of junk mail amount to only an expensive survey. A questionnaire which may or may not be taken under advisement. Just another example of the paucity of leadership when one party – the democrats, in this local case – reigns supreme. Seattle has never met a problem it couldn’t further discuss.

You have a very important point! Why do we want Seattle to be a “World Class City?” For tat matter what isa “World Class City?”

Lets see …

Do we want to be:

Tokyo … or Kyotp? Rottercam or Leiden? Munich or Frnakfurt? New York or San Francisco?

It sems to me that the current Mayor equates WCC with lotsa folks living in high rises, I LIKE that idea. I LIKE the idea of Seattle developing an urban, high density culture t fgo along with our traditional neighborhood/Ballard Ya Shure Betcha culture.

But the key words here should be “Seattle” and “Culture.” The current growth of high density housing in Seattle has all the urban planning one expects of Marvin Gardens on the Monopoly board.

Look at South Lake Union? No plans for schools, no plans for magnet retail areas, no plans for parks …. forgive me Mr. Allen, but the only reason I can see that anyone would want to live there is a fantasy that this is part of Seattle or, perhaps, the Western end of Manhattan.

How does all tis apply to the tunnel kerfuffle? Other than the surface option and Ron Sims’ wise comments, no one has offered a serious plan for the water front. It seems ot me that the City Council cold help by passing legislation requiring any traffic plan in Seattle to include a cultural impact statement, explaining how the work would fit into our overall plan for urban development. Of course this means we need a plan! But why in hell not? Why do we discuss the viaduct as if it were independent of the issues in Rainier Valley or South Lake Union?

Lets look at some of the successes and goofs of the past. The stadia, aside form all other issues, have pretty well destroyed Pioneer Square. Surely, as part of the deal with Allan and the Mariners, an investment could have been required in development of this desirable property? At the other extreme the loverly convention center WORKS because it was panned with the hotels neighboring the freeway. Other examples abound. The Pike Place Market and the stairs project worked very well. Seattle Center works when and only whenb it fits into Queen Anne and serves the downtown, etc etc.

Back at the via duct .. this vote is stupid. We need planning and better leadership.

“open up the waterfront while providing an affordable, environmentally friendly means of moving traffic through the city, has not yet been studied.”

You have to luv the use of the code words “environmentally friendly” in all of his remarks… the enviro-sheep love to hear about the “friendly” solutions…gets their buy-in. Oh and Ron, the reason it hasn’t been studied is becuase it makes 0 sense…..

“If we are going to position Seattle as a vibrant world-class 21st century metropolis, we need to proceed with boldness and vision.”

Belittlement of Leftist enviromentalism aside, why do Rightists hate the environment? The flip-side of this logic is Rightists as ‘environmentally hostile’ and being ‘enviro-predators.’ Do you prefer ‘antagonistic’ solutions? Why are you – for all appearances – against moving toward clearer air and fresher water?

headless lucy says: Condi Rice, Vice President Halliburton , and George Winky Dink Bush have all said that Iraq was not buying Yellowcake or Aluminum tubes for processing.

Are the British calling them liars? No Headlice, your Moonbat! friends AKA the American Left did. I was discussing Yellow Cake and Joseph Wilson. You surripticiously added the Aluminum Tubes! More deflection from an ASSWipe admirer!

Google “16 Words George Bush” and look at the Moonbat!tic full body orgasm your side had. Too bad for you there was no sex with little wrasslers involved!

Look at South Lake Union? No plans for schools, no plans for magnet retail areas, no plans for parks …. forgive me Mr. Allen, but the only reason I can see that anyone would want to live there is a fantasy that this is part of Seattle or, perhaps, the Western end of Manhattan.

And for that, you can thank the voters of Seattle rejecting the Seattle Commons.

You simply can’t get anything right, can you, Pudding-Between-Ears? “Truth Teller” was Mrs. Rabbit’s handle. I never used it, except accidentally (Goldy’s web engine defaults to the last screen name used), and in those cases I posted the correction immediately.

For someone who can’t get anything of the big things right, it’s not surprising that you can’t get little things right either.

@14 The Butler Review was a slanted partisan hack job, and both major opposition parties boycotted it. It has as much credibility as a Bush administration assessment of global warming.

“Nuclear expert Norman Dombey has pointed out that the information relied upon by the Butler Review on the Niger issue was incomplete; as he noted, ‘The Butler report says the claim was credible because an Iraqi diplomat visited Niger in 1999, and almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports were uranium. But this is irrelevant, since France controls Niger’s uranium mines.’ … And when asked by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to discuss the conclusions of British intelligence, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence John McLaughlin stated, ” … I think they stretched … about Iraq seeking uranium from various African locations. We’ve looked at those reports and we don’t think they are very credible. …'”

It’s surprising you (or any other wingnuts) are still trying to peddle this Saddam-was-seeking-nuclear-weapons bullshit, because we now occupy Iraq, and our troops haven’t found a shred of nuclear weapons infrastructure. Whatever they found in the basements of Saddam’s palaces, it wasn’t Nigerian yellowcake. If he was buying African uranium, where the hell is it?

Of course it won’t. Gregoire and Chopp both understand that a majority of the people who would pay 2/3rds of the cost of Nickels’ tunnel option — City Light ratepayers — don’t even get to vote in the advisory election.

@21 They prefer to exploit the environment for private aggrandizement and oppose anything of a preservationist, conservationist, or responsible-stewardship bent because it infringes on their God-given right to make private profits by raping publicly owned resources.

@22 I don’t have any problem with how King County Elections counts ballots. Sure, we’d all like to see improvements to reduce or eliminate the few errors that occur, but I have much more confidence of my vote being counted than if I lived in Florida, Ohio, or any county controlled by a Republican auditor. Republicans blow a lot of farts about King County election fraud; but isn’t it funny that after spending $2 million on legal fees, all they were able to prove was Republican fraud?

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